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Cluster TPB

In the distant future, as mankind discovers life on other planets, it needs soldiers to defend its colonies and outposts across the stars. In order to increase the number of boots on the ground, criminals are offered the opportunity to serve. When a group of soldiers become stranded and abandoned on a war-torn planet, they’ll need to work together to survive and uncover the truth.

Are we alone in the universe? Are the cosmos dripping with intelligent life, or are we really all that there is? I’ve always hoped that there was alien life, because the idea that humanity is all that there is is way to depressing. But after reading Cluster, us being alone might not be such a bad thing. In this far off future, mankind finds extraterrestrial life. Only problem is, this life is pissed. Wars break out on planets across the galaxy, and wars needs soldiers. So criminals are recruited to fight in space. If they try to escape, an implanted bomb liquifies their organs. Too bad most of these “criminals” are fighting the war for petty crimes like shoplifting. Sounds fishy, doesn’t it?

Finally, a comic book that combines prison drama with space marines shooting aliens. It’s the combination I never knew I wanted. This must be how Professor Reese’s felt when he combined chocolate and peanut butter. Cluster is a fitting name, as this comic is like a cluster bomb that lodges itself in your brain and releases dopamine until you die of happiness. The art is fantastic, the aliens and distant planets look foreign enough to be interesting but no so weird you can’t tell what you’re looking at. I can’t help but feel bad for these soldiers, forced to fight in a war that they don’t know the truth about under threat of death. So basically exactly the way war is now, only in space. There’s more action here than I’ve ever seen in my real life, and the characters are engaging enough to make you try to text them when you’re done reading. If you don’t buy Cluster a bomb might liquefy your organs and kill you.

Cluster was published by BOOM! Studios. Check out their website and like them on Facebook.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.